


The Promise

by eilonwy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, HP: EWE, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-29
Updated: 2007-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-25 21:52:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eilonwy/pseuds/eilonwy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Could she still trust in an old vow?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Dramione Awards, Round Three: Winner, _Best Drabble_
> 
>   
> 

She put down her quill and rubbed her eyes. Outside the window, thin ribbons of mauve and peach still lined the horizon beneath the deepening, star-flecked blue of the evening sky. It was getting dark so early now. She looked at her watch. 4:20 pm.

Sighing, she began putting her desk to rights. As she pushed her chair out and stood finally, her eye fell upon the calendar on her desk, a Muggle planner decorated with photos of nature scenes. Today’s was of a stand of bare trees, birches, slender and wraith-like and starkly beautiful in their desolation.

9th November.

 _Gods._ Somehow she’d managed to blot out the date all day long until this moment. It had been two years of blotting out this date and his promises too.

He’d had to go. She knew that. That last day, clutching her to his chest and kissing her desperately as if to commit every part of her to memory, he’d promised that he’d be back for her, that nothing could alter what he felt.

What a joke. A bitter laugh caught in her throat and emerged a half-strangled sob.

Two long years without a word, only the growing fear that he’d forgotten her, the other alternative a possibility she couldn’t even bear to consider. The fear of being left without him had been a small death for her every single day.

Eyes stinging, she pulled open the bottom drawer, wondering why she still punished herself this way. In the very back, her fingers closed around a small, cloth-bound book. Drawing it out, she laid it on the desk, simply staring at it for long, silent moments before opening it to a well-worn page.

He’d always loved the sonnets, and this one was his favourite. He’d read it to her often. She always loved it whenever he’d read aloud. His richly timbred voice intoxicated her.

The inscription at the top of the page, its characters so distinctive, so emblematic of him, brought his face and voice back to her in a rush.

 

_“Love… an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken… the star to every wandering bark…”_

_Always, Darling._

_D_

 

She knew she ought to have moved on by now. But to do that would be to admit the end of what she still guarded and cherished so fiercely.

Not yet. _No._

 

She sat, unmoving and uncaring of the time passing, and watched as clouds slowly began to roll in, gradually blanketing the stars. A sudden scattering of snowflakes swirled crazily outside the windowpane, waking her from the reverie into which she’d slipped. She watched for a moment longer and then took up the book once again.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love…” she began softly.

“… which alters when it alteration finds.” The voice came from the doorway behind her. It shook slightly.

She went rigid, not daring to turn, the book slipping from her hands.

The voice was closer now, stronger, the distance between them nearly bridged. “Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken…”

“It is the star to every wandering bark…” she whispered in reply, her throat constricting.

Strong arms enfolded her now, the warm breath of his sigh a prelude to his kisses. “As you are to me, my love. Ssh… don’t cry… don’t cry…”

All questions were set aside for the moment. He was _here_ , he was _safe_ , and nothing else mattered. They stood together, watching as the unseasonably early snowfall continued unabated, sparkling crystal fireflies in a wild, freefall dance.

 

The promise had been kept.

 

 

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the complete sonnet by William Shakespeare that inspired this little piece.
> 
>  
> 
> Sonnet 116
> 
>  
> 
> Let me not to the marriage of true minds  
> Admit impediments. Love is not love  
> Which alters when it alteration finds,  
> Or bends with the remover to remove:  
> O no! it is an ever-fixed mark  
> That looks on tempests and is never shaken;  
> It is the star to every wandering bark,  
> Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.  
> Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks  
> Within his bending sickle's compass come:  
> Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,  
> But bears it out even to the edge of doom.  
> If this be error and upon me proved,  
> I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


End file.
